Privacy policy
Draft
Last updated Oct 19, 2026 · effective Oct 19, 2026
Privacy policy
What personal information NextEp collects, why, who processes it, and how long we keep it.
Draft pending legal review. It may change before launch.
1. What we collect and why
You must be 14 or older to sign up. Even without an account, the activity and video playback records below are kept per browser using the nx_signal cookie.
| Data | Used for |
| Email address, password (stored only as an irreversible hash), nickname, display language, billing country | Identifying you and signing you in, display language and popcorn packs |
| If you sign up or log in with Google: your Google account identifier, email address and whether it's verified, and name (your default nickname) | Linking your account and signing you in |
| Birth year | Age check before payment |
| Which version of the terms and privacy policy you accepted and when, when you accepted the AI notice, and when you opted in to or out of marketing messages | Consent records |
| Guardian's name, relationship, last 4 digits of phone | Consent records for payers under 19 |
| Payment records: order number, product, amount and currency, payment method type, the payment processor's transaction number and approval time, and any cancellation or refund. Card numbers and other payment details are entered directly in the NICEPAY payment window; we never receive them | Top-ups, cancellations, refunds, settlement and records the law requires us to keep |
| Popcorn received and spent, rental and bundle access, follows, and watch progress | Managing popcorn and access, continue watching and new-episode alerts |
| Comments and reviews you post (including ratings) and reports you file | Running the community and handling reports |
| If you use the AI creation studio: the story and character descriptions you enter, and the scene images and videos made | Creating and storing your results, and charging the creation cost in popcorn |
| Activity records: addresses of pages you view (without search terms or other query strings), features you use (opening the payment sheet, sharing, next episode and so on), when you sign up, log in, pay or unlock, your device type and operating system, and how you arrived (campaign code, campaign values, the previous site's domain) | Improving the service, usage statistics and preventing abuse |
| Video playback records (including guests): the episode and language played, when playback started, how long and which parts you actually watched, the furthest and last positions, pause and skip counts, playback speed, and how playback ended (finished, next episode, closed and so on) | Improving series and episodes (finding where viewers stop watching) and usage statistics |
| Login records: when you logged in and last used the session, and irreversible hashes of your IP address and browser details (we don't store the original values) | Keeping you logged in, account security and preventing abuse |
2. Retention and deletion
- When you close your account, we delete your account details (email, nickname, linked accounts, follows, watch progress, notifications and so on) right away or make them impossible to tie back to you.
- Some records are kept separately for periods set by law: contract and cancellation records for 5 years, payment and delivery records for 5 years, complaint and dispute records for 3 years (Korea's e-commerce law), and login records for 3 months (Korea's Protection of Communications Secrets Act).
- Page view and impression records are deleted after 90 days. Sign-up, payment and unlock records are kept for the legal periods above.
- Login records are deleted 3 months after that login ends (when you log out or it expires).
- Video playback records are kept while we use them to improve our series; they are not used for public view counts or rankings.
- When you close your account, we remove your account details and browser identifier from any remaining activity records, so they can no longer be tied to you.
- So that each person gets the sign-up bonus only once, we keep an irreversible value (hash) of your verified email address and outside (Google) account identifier after you close your account. We unlink it from your account when you close it and use it only to check, if you sign up again, whether the bonus was already given.
- When a retention period ends, we delete the data so it can't be recovered.
3. Processors and outside services
Except where the law requires, we don't share personal data with third parties. The companies below process data for us, or data goes to the services below when you use the related feature. Processing continues until the contract ends or you close your account (legally required records until their period ends).
Google login and the YouTube player are involved only when you use them (signing up by email and watching only episodes NextEp plays itself uses neither). Each company handles data under its own privacy policy.
| Company (country) | What it does / when | Data involved |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS; servers in the Seoul, Korea region) | Runs our servers, database and video files (hosting) | All data the Service stores |
| NICE Payments Co., Ltd. (NICEPAY, Korea) | Approves and cancels popcorn payments (payment processing) | Order number, amount and product name; you enter card details directly in its payment window |
| Google LLC (USA) | When you choose to log in with Google | Google tells us your account identifier, email and whether it's verified, and your name |
| Google LLC — YouTube (USA) | When you open or play a video we provide through YouTube (episodes or extras), your browser loads the YouTube player | YouTube may collect your IP address, device and browser details and cookies under its own policy. Episodes NextEp plays itself don't use the YouTube player |
| Anthropic PBC (USA), BytePlus Pte. Ltd. (Singapore), fal (Features & Labels, Inc., USA) | When you create scripts, scene images or videos in the AI creation studio | The story and character descriptions and scene requests you enter |
4. Cookies and browser storage
We use cookies to keep you logged in (rt_uid, up to 30 days), remember your language (rt_locale, 1 year), show Continue watching on the home page (nextep-rs, up to 5 recent episodes, 180 days), show one-time messages (rt_flash) and secure a login with an outside account (rt_oauth_*, 15 minutes or less).
For usage statistics we use a browser identifier cookie (nx_signal, 1 year). It's a random value created by our server; we don't use your IP address, advertising ID or a device fingerprint. With it we keep the activity records above on our own servers only, and when you log in we link that browser's records to your account.
Browser storage (localStorage and sessionStorage) holds whether you've read the AI notice, how you first arrived (campaign values and the previous site's domain), a tab session number that lasts 30 minutes, settings such as auto-play next and dismissed notices, and drafts such as a writer's manuscript. How you first arrived and the tab session number are sent to our servers with your activity records.
We don't send activity records to outside advertising or analytics services, and we don't use ad-tracking cookies. YouTube may set its own cookies when you open a YouTube video (section 3).
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking the login cookie (rt_uid) stops you from logging in and paying; blocking or deleting the others doesn't stop you from watching.
5. Your rights
You can view or correct your data, or ask us to stop processing or delete it (close your account), at any time. Email the privacy officer below and we'll act within the legal deadline (10 days) and let you know. You can withdraw consent to marketing messages at any time.
6. How we protect your data
- Passwords are stored only as an irreversible hash (scrypt).
- All connections are encrypted (HTTPS).
- Login records keep only hashes of your IP address and browser details.
- We never receive or store card numbers or other payment details.
7. Privacy officer
The privacy officer's name and email are listed under Business information at the bottom of this page. Send questions, requests to view, correct or delete your data, and complaints to the privacy officer. You can also report or get advice from Korea's Personal Information Infringement Report Center (privacy.kisa.or.kr).
8. Changes
October 19, 2026: we corrected the service name to NextEp and brought this policy in line with practice: the data we actually collect (email, password hash, Google account details, payment records, login records, comments and reviews and more), processors and outside services (AWS, NICE Payments, Google, YouTube, AI creation services), legal retention periods, and cookies, browser storage and how to refuse them. Previous version: September 27, 2026.